


or maybe just one more

by Vintar



Category: Fallout (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Goodneighbor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vintar/pseuds/Vintar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy takes on a new hire. As business decisions go, it's a pretty good one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	or maybe just one more

**Author's Note:**

  * For [placentalmammal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/placentalmammal/gifts).



Daisy's caravan rolls up to Goodneighbor minus one familiar face and plus one strange one. 

"Our scout went down outside the city," says her caravan leader, unloading the brahmin. "Frag mine. He was a good kid. Not great eyesight, at the end of things, but a good kid anyway."

It's not the first time she's lost people out there, but it is the first time her crew's bought someone back. A hitchhiker can seem as honest as a nun until you turn a corner and their friends come out of hiding; Daisy's caravaneers know to keep strangers walking on. "Hell. And her?"

He jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the new face. Red hair, bright eyes, no skin. Decent combat armor, decent boots, decent gun. She's helping the caravaneers unload, but her eyes are on Goodneighbor, and though she looks like a run-of-the-mill merc, there's something tired and longing in her gaze. Her roaming eyes land on Daisy, catching her own observation, and she turns away slowly, reluctantly. 

It'd be easy to dismiss her as a traveler who only picked up a gun to get to where she's going, but the tourist vibe scratches off fast; when a gaggle of children appears, all wide puppydog eyes and fast Goodneighbor fingers, she steps between them and the caravan's load, staring them down until they disperse in search of easier prey. 

"I know, I know. But we needed an extra hand, and she wanted passage, there to here." He scratches the brahmin between one set of eyes. "You want my opinion, you should hang on to this one."

"Is that so?" Daisy watches the rise and fall of the new girl's shoulders as she unhitches ropes and slings around packages. Her man has the character judgement that comes from a life spent on the road, and good workers are hard to find and harder to keep, especially if they keep stepping on mines. "I'll keep that in mind."

He shrugs off his rucksack and hands it to Daisy, and when she slings it over a shoulder it rustles instead of clinks. The caps and supplies pay the bills, but the most important haul of the trip is paper, news and gossip and maps scribbled down on whatever was at hand. She'll go through it later, feeding it out to where it needs to go. There's a lot of hungry eyes in Goodneighbor, even more down at Diamond, and she knows she can find buyers for it all.

But that's never the only thing to sort out after a caravan returns. Daisy has a list in her head that needs going through, and now there's a new entry penciled in at the top. She whistles, sharp, so that the new girl turns, then beckons her over.

New girl sticks out a hand. The novelty of it pulls Daisy forward to shake it. "Willow."

"Daisy. You looking for work? I've still got a space here. A few days rest and repair, then back out to the Capital. You in?"

To her surprise, Willow laughs, and it's dark. There's something worn and tired behind those bright baby blues. "I'm looking, but not for that. I just got away from there. I'm not planning on heading back anytime soon." She catches herself, offers a tentative follow-up "Ma'am."

"Kid, I may be pre-war, but I'll never be old enough to be a ma'am." Daisy chews the inside of her lip, goes over her comings and goings. She has another trading caravan heading out to Diamond and south, shorter range, faster returns, but that's not due for another week. She's got nothing that needs extra hands at the moment, no inclination to blow caps on busywork, and if she leaves fresh meat alone in Goodneighbor for a week she'll find Willow in a flophouse or a dumpster. Neither will be particularly helpful.

There are always options, though, if you know what you're doing. Daisy likes to believe that she does.

"Okay, I got something. Follow me."

As always, Bobbi slides open the hatch in her door before Daisy can even knock. By her side, Willow starts, her hand twitching for her gun, then starts again at the sight of the face behind the door. Daisy can't blame her. She remembers being in places where seeing more than one ghoul just wasn't a thing that happened. 

Bobbi isn't exactly one for warm greetings at the best of times, let alone with Daisy dragging some gun-shy stranger down to her door. "What."

"You're always looking for extra hands, right? Mind keeping my new girl busy for a week?"

The squint that Willow gets looks unfriendly, but it means that Bobbi's actually considering it instead of dismissing her out of hand. "You mind getting your hands dirty?"

Willow squares her shoulders. "I won't disappoint. I've got a good back, sharp eyes, and a steady hand."

"You got a mouth that shuts, too?" Bobbi mutters, but she's already drawing the bolts back. She flicks a look back to Daisy. "You want this one back in one piece?"

"If you'd be so kind." Something rises up from the tangled web of her never-ending to-do list, catches her attention. "Ah, that's right-- Magnolia's cancelled poker night tomorrow, we'll pick it up next week."

"I'd want to push it back if I'd lost as much as she did, too," Bobbi huffs with a smirk.

"That's funny, because last time I checked I still had your caps in my safe."

"Laugh it up, Discounts, I'm figuring out your tells." Bobbi aims forked fingers at her eyes, then trains them on Daisy. "Next time, I'm gunning for you."

Willow tries to hide a smile. Maybe it's a sense of ghoul solidarity, or maybe it's the relief of getting a caravan back in mostly one piece, or maybe it's her finally getting sentimental in her old age, but Daisy likes the sight of it. "You know what? Bring the new girl along. Maybe she'll finally be the one to dethrone Clair."

"Is she a ghoul, too?" Willow says, and it gets a bark of laughter from Bobbi.

"Just about. Alright, fresh meat, let me show you the ropes."

Daisy leaves Willow to her. Bobbi's twister than a molecat cave and twice as slippery than mirelurk slime, but everyone in Goodneighbor has a network of favors to balance, and Daisy's fairly confident that Bobbi won't put Willow too deep into one of her schemes. If nothing else, that would mean that one of Daisy's crew had intel on what Bobbi was doing, and Daisy knows that Bobbi doesn't want that at all. The matter temporarily settled, she puts Willow out of her mind.

Except that all that week, busy with stocking and organizing and selling, she can't stop thinking of heavy-leafed trees, long limbs bowing towards the water. They'd lined the rivers when she was a child. She hasn't thought of them in an age. She taps her pencil against the page and thinks of blue water, green leaves, bright colors. The bright yellow of her own namesake. They're just daydreams, distractions. But, for the moment, she indulges herself. What else is Goodneighbor for, after all? 

 

Including Willow in their poker night isn't entirely altruistic. For starters, now Daisy doesn't have to hold KL-E-0's cards for her. Unfortunately, karma swiftly comes back to bite her.

"Hit it, sweet thing," KL-E-0 purrs, and Willow splays out her cards as the rest of the table groans. 

"This is an unfair advantage," Bobbi grouses, chewing her cigar.

"I'm just holding her cards, like you asked." Willow smiles, all blue eyed butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth, but when Clair deals out next, and KL-E-0 raises a claw to pick the discards from her hand, she twitches the cards one to the side, nodding slightly. When she looks up and sees Daisy watching, she shoots her a wink. Daisy's entirely sure that they're all about to get fleeced.

"I don't know where you got her from," Magnolia says, "but Daisy, honey, put her back! She's going to bankrupt us all. I'll be out on the streets, cold and alone." She puffs on one of the tarry cigars that Bobbi's provided, and even in a baggy button-up and boots, perched on the edge of an upturned crate, she manages to look like an old world pinup. "The cold I don't mind, but I simply won't abide being alone."

"I'll keep you company, baby," KL-E-0 says. "I just came into a whole lot of money, after all. I can spoil you rotten."

Their laughter fills the back room at the Rail, mixing with the warmth of the little gas heater and the sharp fumes of Fred Allen's truly awful bathtub vodka. The winter chill is left outside like a bounced patron, pounding on the door.

"Speaking of me being spoiled rotten... Daisy, dear, do you have anything heading to the big Diamond sometime soon? I need to do a little shopping, and I'm not keen to run the big green gauntlet all on my lonesome."

"What, you're too good to support our fledgling local economy?" Daisy drains her beer and does her best to look heart-broken.

Magnolia places a hand to her heart. "If I never need twelve bags of cement and my weight in bobby pins, I promise to go nowhere else. But you're a little light on shoes and sequins."

"True, true. Also, you can't shake me down for microphone parts."

"Such cruel rumors! I don't shake down anyone. It's just that as soon as I talk to that little boy with the radio, well, he just up and hands me all kinds of things--"

The room dissolves into jeers, the sound of caps being shuffled around their rickety table, the gentle whirr of KL-E-0's fans. Clair counts out cards, then counts the empty glasses. "Whose round is it?"

"Mine," Daisy says, then squints at her caps. "Hell. I think I need someone to hold my cards for me too, or I'm going to be out soon."

Willow's been quiet, keeping her mouth shut regardless of how much she's clearly enjoying it. Daisy can't blame a new addition to the town for trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing, working out which hands can stand a little biting. Still, at Daisy's jibe she wiggles her fingers. "Well, I do have two hands." 

She leans away from KL-E-0, one hand still holding her cards, and presses conspiratorially up against Daisy's elbow. "Now, the cards with the ones on them are called aces..."

Daisy growls and swats at her, and Willow retreats back to KL-E-0's side, laughing. Her hand lingers for just a moment, though. When Daisy looks back over at her, she tips her fingers downwards, just a little.

The only one to fold, Daisy is spared from KL-E-0's royal flush. As yet another litany of groans plays out, she pushes herself away from the table, hiking a thumb at Willow. "Alright, good luck charm, come help me carry some glasses."

The front of the Rail is just as lively as the back. In summer the city molders, everyone too hot for more than self-preserving laziness, but Goodneighbor thrives in winter, everyone doubling down on vices to keep them warm. Willow makes space for Daisy at the bar, moving forward through the crowd, and Daisy can't help but enjoy it. If she had a little more fat on her margins she might even consider keeping a bodyguard just for the boost to her ego alone, but it'd be blatantly wasteful to pay for security with an assaultron as your next-door neighbor.

Waiting for Charlie, tucked up against Willow's side, she notices that Willow's got a tooth on a string around her neck, a jagged triangle double-knotted securely into place. 

"Yao guai?"

Willow raises a hand to it, an automatic habit. Some strange smile tugs at her chapped lips. "Do you... do you remember dinosaurs?"

Even after all this time, there are still hooks in the past that can catch on a person. Just the name alone brings back watercolor memories of childhood, long complicated names like the syllables of a magic spell, giant bones arching up towards lofty museum ceilings.

Willows, dinosaurs, daisies. Things she hasn't thought about in a long, long time. 

She whistles. "Huh. You really are older than you look."

It catches Willow by surprise, and her laugh is unguarded, almost sweet. "A girl's gotta have her secrets," she says, and as Willow's hand spreads across her lower back, half protective and half something else entirely, Daisy entirely forgets to follow up _what_ with _where_.

 

They saddle up the brahmin before dawn, in the bled-out darkness before most god-fearing people are out of bed. Thankfully, Goodneighbor's always been a little light on those. Hair tied back out of her eyes and a shotgun on her back, Magnolia seems as awake as she's even been. Daisy isn't sure if she's woken up early or hasn't yet got to bed. 

"All set." Daisy tugs at a pack tie, pulls at a knot, testing the little things that she knows have already been tested.

"A kiss for luck," Magnolia says, tapping her cheek. Daisy obliges, the gesture familiar. 

"You still stink of moonshine," she chides. "If I had a nose, it'd be wrinkling."

"It'll keep the muties away," Magnolia chuckles, and, with a wave, turns to head out with the lead brahmin. It's not exactly a foolproof run, but it's one she's done before. As long as they stick to the main routes and get there before nightfall, they should be fine.

Willow's just as ready to leave, sharp-eyed and straight-backed. She eyes Daisy, opens her mouth, shuts it again.

"Last chance to spit it out," Daisy warns, as the last brahmin begins its plodding journey out of the gate.

Willow grins, roguish. "Anything for me?"

It's sweet, and the novelty of that makes Daisy smile. She's had her fair share of seduction, keeping people around for days or weeks or decades, but sweetness is rare on the ground these days. "What kind of trader would I be if I sent my crew out without the very best protection at hand?" she says, and takes Willow by the chin. "For luck." 

When she presses a kiss to the very corner of Willow's mouth, Daisy feels her inhale, hears the small sound of her leather gloves tightening around the grip of her rifle.

Willow looks at her for a moment, fighting a smile, but then she steps backwards, keeping pace with her brahmin. She sketches a quick salute as she leaves, her eyes keen.

Daisy always counts down the days until all of her caravans are due. It's just good practice, after all. If she knows that she'll be counting down this one with more interest than the others, well, that's between no-one but her and her calendar.


End file.
